


Eight Monsters

by deltachye



Category: Joker Game (Anime)
Genre: Angst, One Shot Collection, Other, Reader-Insert, Romance, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-08-16 15:37:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8107999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deltachye/pseuds/deltachye
Summary: [reader x various d-agency]"Who are you?" you asked."I don't know," he replied. "Who do you want me to be?""Yourself."He smiled. "I don't know who that is."





	1. Miyoshi ; Lügner

 

❝ 八 ❞ 

* * *

 

**Lügner ; liar (n.)  
one who tells lies.**

_“don’t kill. don’t die…”_

It was rare for a woman to be working at all, much less as a spymaster’s assistance. With a stroke of luck, you had managed to win the Lieutenant Colonel’s affections, during an incident at a flower stand. He had approached you then, cane clacking on the flower petal strewn tiles, and asked that you join him for specialized training.

But you had failed. That much you would have to admit. The physical was too enduring, and no matter how sharp your mind, it would not account for the fact that your arms weren’t able to bear the weight Yuuki had thrust onto you. Yet, Lieutenant Colonel Yuuki refused to cut you loose, even after you had hung your head in front of him with shame. He had made you a coordinator instead, meaning that you worked closely with the eight other men. Or, as Lieutenant Sakuma preferred, the eight ‘monsters’.

“Hey, you. Want to play?”

You looked up lazily as Miyoshi chewed around his cigarette. His real name, you’d never know—but he went as Miyoshi now, just as the rest went by fake names and fake pasts. Men written from fiction, born anew. Your own name had been changed. The real one was locked up deep in the lowest level of your mind, and on days, you could scarcely recall it. Miyoshi did not take to your silence and clicked his tongue impatiently.

“I’m not good at poker,” was all you said.

“Your face _does_ say it all, doesn’t it?” He snorted slightly with amusement, the action bringing a grey, curling trail of smoke towards you. You waved it away dismissively.

“Perhaps. I wouldn’t succeed as a spy, would I?”

That brought him to laugh and you smiled a little, too. You liked all of them, you supposed, as much as you _could_ like men who were constantly lying to you. But Miyoshi was different. A little more personable, or memorable than the rest… Yet that was the very thing that handicapped a man who worked a life of shadowy deception.

“Come on. It’ll be fun. At the very least, it’ll be less lonely.”

You pursed your lips before inhaling deeply, the scent of tobacco whistling down your nose to your lungs. It was masculine and familiar, and before you could think much about it, your mouth was moving on its own.

“Fine, then. Don’t think I’ll help you win, though. It’s a game of the Joker, after all.”

He smirked and held his arm out for you to hold. You curled yourself around him, feeling very domesticated. The idea of being a housewife to a man like Miyoshi was a joke in of itself.

“Fine, then,” he replied, his arm suddenly pulling you aside. You blinked up at him as he pressed you to the wall, his hair in wet strands from the misty Japanese spring outdoors. His grin was fiendish and you could see the embers in his cigarette smoulder with less intensity than his cinnamon eyes.

“What if I _make_ you?” he asked sultrily.

“Miyoshi,” you sighed with a hint of amusement, “you love yourself more than you could love me.”

He paused for a moment and retreated, positioning his hat on top of his head. He snickered a little at your comment.

“I suppose,” he said, and you were blissfully unaware of the fact that he was lying.

\---

Miyoshi lied to you a lot. They ranged from tall to white, and maybe he did it to test his own ability. After all, you had gone through Yuuki’s special onslaught of training as well—if the Lieutenant Colonel’s assistant could see through him, he was done for in the real world. But you didn’t. You were so blinded by him that you drank up every detail he spun up. What he’d eaten for dinner; filet mignon instead of rice and fish. What he’d won in cards today; 4,500 yen instead of 4,000.

That he didn’t love you; even though he did.

Perhaps he was lying to himself all along. Perhaps you _could_ see through his constant lies and you were lying to him about not knowing. It was all a damn game of lies. Deception, evasion, distortion, and mistruths. He was King of the Joker Game, but he had no idea what he was around you besides a poor man trying to win over a woman’s feelings. He could be anybody and nobody, but when you looked at him, he felt a little bit like the person he had been before Miyoshi. That man was long dead, but your touch on his skin had brought back the memories, like a whiff of a familiar scent. However, Miyoshi wasn’t sure if he wanted to remember.

You pulled your shirt back over yourself, buttoning the blouse over your chest. He watched quietly.

“Did you wear traditional clothing before?” he asked, observing the clumsy movements with which you fumbled. Your hands must have been more used to tying obis than zipping up jackets. The lingering smell of sweet sake and tobacco hung in the air, leaving a delicate note on his palate each time he breathed. The lantern flickered, casting haunting shadows along the walls.

“Yes,” you replied softly, with such innocence it made his heart ache, “but Yuuki made me throw out all my kimonos when I agreed to join the Agency.” You smiled a bit at the old memory and stood, rising from the bedding to locate your skirt. He continued to observe your figure, his sharp eyes scanning you as if you were a document that needed to be memorized. Months had been spent on honing eidetic memory. Failure to remember the details exactly resulted in immediate eviction from the program. Besides, it was a redundant understatement, anyways: he had already memorized your body from head to toe.

“Miyoshi,” you said suddenly, startling him with the conviction in your voice. You knelt on the tatami mats beside him and looked down at your lap, your brow furrowing, as it did when you were anxious about something. He rose, cupping your face in his right hand, allowing the warmth from your face to flow to his fingers. His thumb could graze your jaw, and he took in your face, which was sculpted with soft lines.

“What is it?” he questioned, concealing his sudden anxiety with deceptive leisure.

“Why would—why _did_ you do this to yourself?”

The harsh question was surprising and he didn’t know how to respond. He raised an eyebrow to signify his confusion and you continued, wrapping your hand around his wrist and pushing him aside forcibly. He allowed his hand to hang in the air before retracting it.

“The first rule of being a spy is to have no ties,” you muttered, “but, what you’re doing with me… is that not forging a relationship?”

“We already established that this would be a one time—”

“But it won’t be,” you argued fiercely, “that’s just a lie! It’s a lie, Miyoshi, because I…!” you looked away suddenly and he saw your eyes glisten with moisture.

“I know,” he replied after a long while. He took the hand you had forced away and ran it through his maroon hair, sighing deeply. He sat up fully and looked down at the floor himself, smiling wryly to himself. Did you think he didn’t know how much treason he was committing by bedding you? By falling in _love_ with you? He knew, all right.

“I know,” he said to the floor, “you’ll probably be the death of me.”

Your gaze snapped back to him and the horror written on your features made him feel a twang of guilt.

“You were always too obvious with your emotions,” he murmured exasperatedly, taking both hands to lift your chin. You stared at him through your dark eyelashes, your lips pressed together in a tight and defiant line.

“Don’t say that you’ll die like that, Miyoshi. It’s our motto. Don’t kill, don’t die… right?”

He couldn’t help a sardonic chuckle. “Yes, that’s been engrained into my mind heavily, at this point.”

You took your smaller hands and laid them over his, the warmth once again spreading to his cold fingers. You closed your eyes, tears beading on the ends of the lashes like dusk dew on cherry blossom petals. He could smell your perfume when you were this close. Gentle and soft, just like you were… God, you weren’t suited for the D-Agency’s life. A muted bubble of resentment roiled in his stomach towards Yuuki, who had dragged you into this… and then towards himself, for enrolling in this career in the first place. Would things be different if he had met you on the street as a passerby? Would things be different if he wasn’t an agent of espionage, about to be sent off to a tense and dangerous Germany for who knows how long? He might’ve liked things to be different, but it was far too late for that velleity.

You spoke again, your voice hushed but strong. That had always surprised him. You had seemed so delicate when he’d first seen you, at Yuuki’s shoulder… but you were strong, and resilient, and perhaps that was why he thought you would be able to withstand him. You were so strong, in fact, that he could not discern whether or not you were cracking.

“So you’ve got to promise me,” you were saying. He listened intently as you spoke, a hard glint of passion in your expressive eyes. “That you won’t kill, and you won’t die. …Miyoshi?” You rose your voice a little when he didn’t speak. “Miyoshi.”

“I promise,” he replied, lying once again. Only, he hadn’t known. At that time he had believed that he was being truthful. That there were only a few truths in the world: change is constant, death is final, and he would keep his promise to you. Your hands then gripped his tightly and you looked up, the tears rolling down your face in fat droplets.

“Miyoshi, I love you.”

His eyes widened. His breath caught in his throat uselessly and he felt very sure that this was it; this was the end. All that training was for naught, if three words from a simple girl could render him so useless. What was he doing? How could he leave you and pretend to be somebody else for months, years… decades? Panic surged in his stomach and you noticed, looking down guiltily.

“I’m sorry,” you said quickly, dropping your hands and standing, in order to distance yourself from him. “You need to focus on your mission. Forget I said anything—”

“I love you too,” he choked out, for once, telling the truth, and the whole truth. He sounded beside himself. Pathetic. Like the man _before_ Miyoshi, who had ceased to be when he had taken up his new life. Fine, if that was how it would be. If he wasn’t Miyoshi, then he could’ve been with you. He stood and wrapped his arms around your waist tightly, pressing his face into your hair, his breath coming in shallow pants as he held onto you. An eruption of relief for _finally_ being honest flowed over his being, and the two of you stood there for a long time. For all the world knew, you were merely a couple saying goodbye as one head off for a long-time overseas trip.

It was only too bad that this one moment of candor wouldn’t make up for his earlier deceits. If he had known what would happen, he wouldn’t have said anything at all. He would’ve kept being Miyoshi; a cold agent of fraud.

And if you had known it would be your last goodbye, you wouldn’t have said anything, either; a warm woman of innocence and regret.

\---

“He is dead,” Yuuki stated blandly, smoothing the telegram’s paper onto his desk with care. He steepled his long fingers and stared at you. Those dark eyes pierced you painfully, looking deep into your soul, and you felt so violated that you had to look away. Miyoshi had always told you that your emotions were too obvious on your face, and you bowed your head slightly in an attempt to conceal them.

“I see,” you said flatly. “Will you be travelling to Germany, then?”

“I have to. Miyoshi had the accomplice list with him. I must retrieve it before it falls into the hands of the Germans.”

“I’ll prepare your trip right away—”

“You loved him, didn’t you?”

His question made you flinch and you shuddered, slowly pulling your hands away from the telegraph machine.

“No,” you lied to the desk, and he merely blinked.

“Yes, you did. Now is not the time to be insolent.”

Your gaze dropped back to the desk. “How… how did you know?”

“It was obvious, wasn’t it? Don’t ask idiotic questions.”

“I apologize, sir.”

The old man stood, threading his arms through his jacket sleeves. You set up the telegraph machine again, your hand shaking slightly. You swallowed thickly and was about to dial the travel agency when Yuuki stopped in front of your desk, looking down at you.

“Book two tickets,” he ordered. Your brow furrowed with confusion.

“Two, sir?”

“You’ll want to see him, won’t you? Once the Germans realize who he is, they’ll burn him,” he responded curtly, walking away with a dismissive flourish of his coattail. Your mouth hung agape with shock and you nodded dumbly to yourself.

“Yessir,” you said to the empty air. You looked back to the telegraph machine, but found that you could not dial, because your vision had blurred too much with tears. You understood why Yuuki had left the room now and let your head fall forwards into your hands, your pathetic weeps racking your entire body.

“Liar,” you whimpered to yourself, alone in the world, “liar, liar, liar, liar…”

\---

“You retrieved it, sir?”

“Yes. Be quick. I believe Miyoshi’s been suspected. Five minutes.”

You nodded once and inhaled sharply to steel your resolve. When you walked into the room, you had to cover your nose with your glove. It smelt strongly of blood, frost, and old flesh, and your heart hammered against your ribs strongly. He lay on the bed as if he were just asleep, waiting for a wake-up call… _Guten Morgen, dear! Wake up, now!_ you thought to yourself, feeling hysterical now that you were confronted with his corpse. You calmed yourself with a long breath of the frozen air, which was disgustingly stale.

You walked to his side, needing a few moments in order to prepare for the sight. You looked down, your eyes drawn to the blossom of blood, like the petal of a rose, across his white shirt. He looked so peaceful, so beautiful like this. His eyes had been closed and the smug smirk he always wore had faded, his countenance portraying nothing but calm. Was that the real him? He deserved that, then. Peace and calm. You brushed a stray strand of dark hair off his forehead, noticing the torn edge of his collar. Smart. Clever, Miyoshi was. But cleverness would not defend one against a shard of metal thrust into the gut.

“I lied to you when I said I wouldn’t miss you,” you muttered gently, knowing that Yuuki was pacing impatiently outside the door. You pressed a hand to his clammy cheek, withdrawing sickly at the touch of his pallid skin. You expected him to open his eyes and laugh at you for sounding so sentimental. You expected him to make fun of you, to get up and smirk at you with that air of smugness he always had.

But he did not. He did nothing but lie there.

“You lied to me when you said you wouldn’t die,” you whispered accusatorily, your voice dropping so low that only the dead would hear you. And, you supposed, that was the way it had to be now. You closed your eyes and breathed shakily. “I love you, Miyoshi… that’s the truth.”

You bowed to him respectfully, clasping your hands together feebly for prayer, and turned heel, marching out of the room without a glance back.

Two weeks later, you received a letter in the mail. It was addressed from an alias of Miyoshi’s. You hardly recognized the Kanji, so disoriented you were, only able to identify it by the shape of his brush strokes, which had always been strong but elegant. Of course, Miyoshi had mastered forgery, but his own handwriting was distinctly his. You sliced the parchment open so quickly you cut your own palm. You expected an explanation—surely, he and Yuuki had devised some plan, to send him off to a remote country in hiding—so Miyoshi was still alive, right?

But it was not so. It was dated too late, and must have been written antemortem. You sank to your knees, weeping, both with joy and despair. Once you had wiped your tears, you read the letter, which was shortened to a few short paragraphs. Miyoshi had always been concise—time was the enemy, always—but now, in these circumstances, you wished that he could’ve gone on forever. His writing was elegant; each character was like a painting, and you ran your finger over the dried ink wistfully.

_If you receive this, then I’ve obviously died, breaking my promise. That was most likely my fault, or perhaps it was an accident. Either way, I died before you._

_I’m sorry I never got to tell you my real name in person, and I’m sorry I never got to hear yours. I’m sorry for loving you, when this fate was inevitable; I’m sorry that you had to love me._

_I’m sorry for lying to you so much, and I want nothing but happiness for you. So forget me. Forget us._

_Don’t let your emotions show on your face so much, all right?_

“Liar!” you shrilled again and again, until the word had lost all significance or meaning. The words did not match up with Miyoshi’s persona, and you had to wonder if he was writing as another fake, or if you were seeing who he really was. In any case, he was gone forever. Yuuki had told you that he’d died in the most honourable way a spy can. In an accident. An _accident_. Nobody had known who he was or what he’d achieved in life… what he’d done, what crimes he’d committed. He was merely another body without anybody to claim that they knew him. Except for you. You had known. You had known what he’d done, and you knew who he was. But it didn’t matter, because he was gone. Your forehead touched the floor and you screamed in broken, discordant sobs, “you’re a dirty liar, Miyoshi, and I hate you for it!”

But you were lying to yourself, too, because you would never be able to forget. You would never be able to hate him, much less stop loving him. Even if he was six feet under; even if he were fighting through the flames of Hell; you loved him, and damned you were for that.

You were sorry, too.

_“…i said i wouldn’t, but i lied.”_


	2. Tazaki ; Skojare

****

**Skojare ; trickster (n.)  
one who deceives.**

_“on me you performed your best little magic trick…”_

“Was this your card?”

“Sir,” you said in a level but mildly amused tone, “for the last time, I’m not interested in your card tricks.”

“Shame.” The man flipped the Queen of Hearts—which had of course been the one you had drawn—out of existence. You’d seen enough trickery to know that the magic lay behind counting and numbers and arithmetic, and as a dealer yourself, you hardly cared much for it. But the man was handsome beyond regular standards, so you allowed yourself to be secretly entertained for just a moment longer, until your shift ended. 

“So, were you ever going to tell me what it is that you’re doing here?” you asked, cocking your head to the side. He’d been lingering around the old bar for quite some time now, dropping in occasionally to order a drink. It was always something simple, like a scotch on the rocks, and he’d just sit there and sip at it. The bar you worked at was nothing special. It was a pub on the corner, and your only regulars were the storeowners or shady teenagers who wanted a taste of the forbidden Gods’ Elixir. The first time he’d shown wasn’t strange but the second was odd, and by the fourth you had to ask.

“Do you really want to know?” he asked, his deep voice suddenly dropping lower. He leant across the bar table, his chin resting on your shoulder. Each breath of his was loud in your ear and you could scarcely hear him over the beating of your heart.

“I’m a spy.”

“A spy?” you asked, raising your eyebrows and leaning forwards with renewed curiosity. “So it’s true. There’s going to be a war?!”

He settled back into his chair, shuffling the deck of cards with a sly grin that narrowed his Japanese eyes. The cards shifted against each other smoothly, the distinctive _thwack_ filling the empty silence. “No. I’m joking with you. Don’t tell me you bought it from a conman?” The cards stopped and he gave you another sly grin. “Or _am_ I a conman?”

You huffed slightly, rolling your eyes to conceal your embarrassment for reacting so childishly. You liked to think you were pretty good at reading people, having played poker and other bar games for so long. Maybe it was his face, but you felt that you could never quite get a complete grasp on what he was thinking. The nameless man looked to be hiding self-satisfaction, so you believed him. At least, you believed him for now. 

You didn’t know that you were falling for his, but that was the way it was meant to be. You were supposed to be the spellbound audience and he, the magician. That was what he wanted. This is what he had worked for all along.

“Then why are you really here?” You asked again, unable to shelter your curiosity as you watched him flip the cards back and forth. “Tell me that and I’ll put it on the house.”

“Have you ever considered that perhaps… maybe, just maybe I’m here to see _you_?” He raised his drink to you and winked, deep captain blue eyes glittering in the low lighting of the pub. The lamps looked like stars reflected in his enormous stare. 

“Cheers to the house.”

“Then you should at least tell me your name if you’ll be so tight-lipped.” You spoke to conceal your hand, this passionate longing for him, because it was common etiquette to keep a poker face during a game. But you felt as if he could see through your bluff, despite your best smile, and that he was the best player you could’ve found yourself matched against. 

“N…” He started with something before shaking his head. “You can just call me Tazaki.”

“Don’t tell me that’s another joke?” you asked teasingly, maybe even in a flirting way. Bet 200 down. His entire being seemed to gleam with masculine vivacity and he upped it to 500.

“Wouldn’t you like to know… if you pick a card? Any card, any card. Come on, love, any card.”

You scowled, but it was merely a front. Tazaki—or whoever he was—had lifted the monotony of your every day work and you couldn’t stop yourself from reaching forwards and picking a card, any card—and it was the Queen of Hearts with a number scribbled across it. You narrowed your eyes, wondering when he had written the series of numbers when you had been watching him this whole time. 

“Thanks for a good evening,” he said with a twinkle in his dark eyes. He stood, placing his hat on his head. You fumbled with the card, shoving it in your pocket as you scrambled around the bar to catch up to him.

“Are you coming back?” you asked hastily. He looked down at you with some surprise.

“Why do you ask?”

“It’s not everyday that a man as interesting as you comes along,” you admitted. You dug around in your pocket, searching for the card, only to find that it had vanished. Panicked, you turned quickly to see if it’d fell on the floor or was on the counter before Tazaki cleared his throat. You turned back around to feel him press his lips to yours, a smooth piece of paper slipped into your vacant hand. He tasted of nothing but a faint remembrance of scotch, as if he were already nothing but a memory.

He leant away shortly afterwards and you looked down, the Queen of Hearts back in your hand.

“That your card?” he asked sultrily with a wink as he left the bar. The bell tinkled as the door fell shut again. You stood there, dumbstruck, not even realizing that he had not once given you any straightforward answers to your questions.

And you didn’t even care, because you’d fallen for him.

But that was all he needed of you.

Before long, you found yourself locked back into repetition. Only this time, it didn’t make your bones ache or your heart feel like it was slowing down out of boredom—now, you were constantly listening. Your breasts had a translucent sheen to them as you laid yourself down for a stranger whose man you had been too disgusted to remember. Still, it was fine. This was fine, because you were doing it for Tazaki, the man who’d made you feel alive again. The man’s touches, if you closed your eyes and turned your head, could’ve been his—so you endured it.

“Well?” he asked, turning a card in his hands absentmindedly.

“He said that the operation is Manchuria is about guaranteed. Explosives have been set on the tracks and are rigged to go off late this month. The League of Nations, he said, will do nothing.”

Tazaki nodded thoughtfully. He flipped the card in his fingers.

“Was this your card?” he asked lightly in a tone that seemed too melancholy for the smile on his pale face. You blinked, confused, your brow furrowing slowly.

“No…?”

He slid the joker across to you before giving you a pained smile. 

“My apologies.”

“Wait. Tazaki, wait!”

Again, you scrambled after him, this time more desperate than before. You latched onto his arm, desperately wanting to feel his touch the way the other man had soiled you.

“Wh-what did I do? I told you, didn’t I? I did everything you asked!”

“You did,” he agreed amicably. When you looked up at his face, you were so horrified that he was easily able to slide out of your grip, straightening his suit jacket.

“You _are_ a con…” you whispered. Suddenly, it all felt like it had fallen into place, and you realized with horror what you had done. What you had said to him… all that you had betrayed. You felt yourself shaking your head as if physically repulsed by the truth. “You’re a spy after all.”

“You will not remember me,” he soothed faintly. “The last month of your life will be gone the moment you sleep.”

You remembered the drink he has passed to you through the taste of his lips and felt sick to your stomach, your knees growing weak.

“How could you do this to me?” you asked stupidly as he began to walk away again, his hand on the door handle. Your knees were giving away and your head spun with aimless fog, like the cigarettes Tazaki smoked. “I thought you loved me—I loved _you_.”

“No,” he replied sadly, surprising you by not ignoring you entirely. You were on the floor sobbing, but he spoke with his back facing you, his words weighing heavily on your already shattered heart. “You loved an idea of me.”

You hadn’t known it, but he did not face you because he could not bear to look upon his greatest mistake.

When you woke in your bed, it took you a while to get your bearings. You immediately went to the physician, having trouble remembering things. 

“What do you last remember?” the old man asked, writing your symptoms down on a chart. You swallowed, feeling ashamed that you’d somehow misplaced a whole three weeks of events.

“Um… last month, there was that big typhoon. But that’s all I have. Oh, but I woke up with this in my pocket.” You hastily handed the doctor the playing card that had been slipped into your clothes. It had fallen to the ground as you’d gotten dressed, and you had no idea of how it had gotten there. You didn’t recognize it at all, but it must have had some importance if it was lain so closely to your breast.

“A joker?” the doctor asked, clearly puzzled. You felt sad, all of the sudden, as he turned the card over and over in his hands. You watched the face smile and frown, flipping away and towards you. The faces of Janus were those of new beginnings and entryways, but the Joker’s grin looked only to be that of the end. 

“Yes… it’s a joker.”

_“…and it was quite the challenge to make me so lovesick.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Elsewhere: https://goo.gl/AfN2xT


End file.
